'Asfour': The Arabic word for bird has deep linguistic roots in the Middle East

It is also used in colourful proverbs in English and Arabic

The Arabic word for bird is asfour. Photo: The National

“For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly,” wrote the Lebanese-American poet and author Khalil Gibran. The reflection can be found in his renowned and influential work, The Prophet, in a section where he contemplates the nature of speech and silence.

The metaphor uses the idea of the bird flying to illustrate the depth and breadth of human thought and imagination.

This week’s Arabic word of the week, asfour, which means bird, has been used in many colourful proverbs in English and Arabic. Asfour is a noun with two distinct meanings. The first refers to one species of bird, specifically the sparrow, and other small birds such as finches are also associated with the word. The second meaning refers to all birds.

There is another word for bird in classic Arabic, tair, which is sometimes used colloquially, but asfour is equally if not more commonly used in colloquial Arabic across dialects.

Asfour comes from the verb asfarah, derived from the four Arabic letters Ain, Sad, Fah and Rah. Asfarah refers to the act of dying cloth or any item using the plant ousfour, which creates a very specific yellow pigment and dye. The ousfour plant is known as safflower in English and is one of the world's oldest crops, first cultivated in Mesopotamia as early as 2,500BC.

The word has historical roots in Proto-Afroasiatic and Proto-Semitic languages, which indicates that it has long and deep linguistic roots in the region. The feminine version of asfour is asfoura and the plural of the word is asafeer.

Also derived from the same root word, but pronounced slightly differently, ousfour refers to two small bones present on each side of a horse’s forehead. The word ousfouree refers to the camel that has two humps.

Asfour is used in many colourful proverbs in Arabic. These include “one bird in the hand is better than two birds in the bush” which means what you have is better than what you do not have. There is also “the birds of my stomach are singing”, which means that you are hungry. “The birds of his head are flying high” refers to someone who has become arrogant.